Celebrating the Festival of Lights, Recipes for Hanukkah

For seven of the eight days of Hanukkah, Jessica and Michael Fish observe the Jewish holiday with their two young sons on a smaller scale. “We light the menorah and sing some songs so it’s a really festive holiday for us,” she says. “Our boys [Jordan, 4, and Ryan, 2] can open a gift a small gift.”

On one night, however, the celebration turns more grand when 30 to 40 relatives fill the Fish home in Avon for dinner, singing and games. Jessica Fish’s 11 cousins, who each have their own children, her grandparents and parents, aunts and uncles gather to commemorate the Hanukkah miracle. They light the menorah to remember how a small amount of oil miraculously lasted for eight days in the temple.

The gathering resembles the Fishes’ dinner and fun when they are just a foursome “but on a bigger scale,” Jessica Fish says. “We hand out song sheets and light the menorah. For each of the children, there is a pile of gifts with their names on it. When my grandfather says, ‘One, two, three,’ the kids run to their pile and rip open the presents.”

“We’ve been doing this for years,” she says. “It’s a nice tradition.”

What has changed over the years, as the family has grown and as the matriarchs have aged, is the meal. “It used to be that my grandmother would make a big dinner,” Fish says. “We would have an adult table and a kids’ table. As she got older, dinner became a catered [event].”

A pot luck approach remains a solution to feeding a large group and was a practice that Fish’s family often followed for other holiday celebrations. “There are other holidays when we have extended family of 80 to 90 people, and we would have a pot luck meal,” she says. One person volunteered to be the organizer who would assign a course or a category of food to each family.

Sharing the cooking duties a la pot luck eases the work load for one person when entertaining a crowd of family and friends or the gathering falls on a weeknight. Whether the group is large or small, tradition dictates that the celebratory meal feature certain dishes.

Fried foods such as potato pancakes or Sufganiyot, an Israeli-style jelly doughnut, recall the miracle of the oil. Fish says that her family also gravitated toward “real Jewish comfort food” such as matzo ball soup and roasted chicken. Her mother and grandmother also make their Israeli family recipe for Yaprakes or grape leaves stuffed with rice and meat. “For the amount of time it takes to make them, they are scooped up so quickly,” Fish says. “I have a running joke with my brother because he and I love them so much. My mother has to divide up the leftovers so that they are perfectly even between my brother and me.”

As a holiday, Hanukkah is child-oriented with songs, game-playing and, of course, the expectation of gifts adding up to a festive occasion. Families such as the Fish family have created their own holiday traditions over the years, but the Internet acts as a great source of ideas for developing those traditions.

Some sites show how the dining table can be set and decorated in the blue and white colors – the shades of the Israeli flag. A more modern Hanukkah color scheme often replaces white with silver or gold. While the menorah is an integral part of the holiday ritual, other kinds of candles and candle-holders can add to the decorations and help to create a mood.

Children can be occupied for hours with a collection of dreidels, the spinning tops with Hebrew letters on each of the four sides. Kids spin the top and bet on which letter will turn up. They play for a delicious gift: gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins known as gelt.

Even if the holiday preparations don’t include an arts and crafts session, encourage children to at least help out in the kitchen. “I try to get my children involved,” Fish says, adding that they are still too young to take on major culinary chores. “They both love to be in the kitchen, and they help me make the matzo balls or add spices to soup.”

Hanukkah “is a nice time of year to show our children how important it is to be together,” she says. “We make sure we are together every night. It’s a beautiful tradition for us.”

The Hanukkah table wouldn’t be complete without potato pancakes. This recipe, from The Courant’s files, uses grated potato for texture and a bit of matzo meal to bind together the ingredients.

POTATO LATKES

7 or 8 medium potatoes

1 large onion, peeled

2 eggs

3 tablespoons matzo meal

1 scant tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon baking powder

Vegetable oil for frying

Grate unpeeled potatoes and onion into a strainer that is suspended over a bowl to catch the juices. Use a wooden spoon or your hand to press as much liquid as possible out of the mixture.

Transfer the potato-onion mixture to a clean bowl. Carefully pour off the watery part of the potato-onion juices, but do not discard the thick starchy paste at the bottom. Scrape the paste into the potato-onion mixture. Add eggs, matzo meal, salt, pepper and baking powder, and mix thoroughly.

Heat 1/2 cup of vegetable oil in a heavy skillet. Drop about 2 tablespoons of the potato mixture into the oil and fry, turning once, until pancakes are deep golden brown on both sides, about 10 minutes total. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately with sour cream and applesauce. Serves 8 to 10 or more as a side dish.

Mashed potatoes form the base of this variation on the traditional pancake.

MASHED POTATO PANCAKES

2 eggs

2 cups cold mashed potatoes

1 tablespoon flour

¼ cup minced onion

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil for frying

Whisk eggs in a mixing bowl. Add potatoes, flour, onion and salt and pepper to taste. Stir gently but thoroughly until mixture is well blended. Shape 1 tablespoon of potato mixture into a ball, then flatten into a pancake.

Fry pancakes in hot vegetable oil until browned on both sides. Remove from pan, and serve warm with sour cream and applesauce. Serves 3 to 4.

Recipes for Sufganiyot – jelly doughnuts – call for frying the dough balls in hot oil rather than baking.

SUFGANIYOT

2 packages active dry yeast

¼ cup lukewarm water

1 tablespoon sugar

1-1/2 cups lukewarm water or milk

1/3 cup melted margarine

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon salt

4-1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Jelly (flavor of your choice) for filling

Powdered sugar

Mix yeast, water and 1 tablespoon sugar in a mixing bowl, and set aside for 10 minutes to allow the yeast to proof. Add the milk or water, melted margarine, eggs, salt and about half of the flour, and beat with an electric mixer, using the dough hook, to form a soft dough. Gradually add remaining flour, beating until dough is no longer sticky. Cover the bowl, and set aside in a warm place until dough has doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Turn dough onto a floured board and roll out to about ½-inch thickness. Using a biscuit cutter or a glass, cut into 2-inch circles. Cover and set aside to rise until doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes.

Heat a few inches of oil in a deep fryer or a deep pot until oil is 375 degrees. Deep fry the doughnuts, a few at a time, until golden brown, turning the doughnuts as needed. Remove from hot oil with a slotted spoon or spatula and place on paper towels to drain.